About Us

Hello! My name is Xena. I’m administrator for this blog. We Hold These Truths To Be Self-Evident believes in diversity, love, kindness and equality for all, regardless of religion, race, gender, or sexual orientation.

On this blog, you will find that we follow trials; encourage people to be kind to each other; joke a little; report on some current events; and other things.

Thanks for visiting this page. Please follow me on Twitter, @XenaBb7.

History

On February 26, 2012, a 17 year old’s life was brutally taken in Sanford, Florida. His name is Trayvon Martin. The man who killed him, George M. Zimmerman, claimed self-defense under Florida’s stand your ground statute. He was not arrested until April, 2012, after the governor of Florida appointed a special investigating State’s Attorney to the case.

A few of us met in the comment section of Yahoo articles. As discovery was released, we thought it would be good to have one place to upload it for convenient retrieval. We started a Yahoo Group titled Blackbutterfly768. As time went on, online comment sections on news sources became places of hate-speech, mean-spirited, game playing places for trolls. That is how the thought of starting a blog came about. The title “Blackbutterfly” was already taken on Word Press. We added “7” to the title, and in August 2012, Blackbutterfly7 was launched.

My interests in the case centered on stand your ground law. I soon discovered that the majority of others on social media centered on race. I thought the days of using racial slurs and statistics in effort to support white supremacist ideologies had ended long ago. It hurt my heart deeply to realize that people did not stop to think of those things that effect all humans that do not discriminate; things such as hunger, grief, and yes — death.

Death does not care about the color of skin; financial status; gender; age; I.Q; education or any of the things that mankind uses to categorize others. We’re all residents of this planet called Earth. We can come together when there are natural catastrophes, and do not seem to care about the color, gender, religion or gender preferences of those who help. We should be able and willing to carry forth that respect for everyone, every day, all day.

As of September 2017

I’ve had the humbling honor of finding that somme my posts have been cited in professional publications.

The book titled New Mexico 2050, published in 2015 by the University of New Mexico Press, contains a footnote to this blog. They cited a post that I wrote in March 2014 about the death of Jonathan Mitchell. It was to support the writer’s opinion that New Mexico needs to hire more Black police officers to “… help build a culture of understanding …” and “… put an end to cases like the one involving the death of Iraq War veteran Jonathan Mitchell …”

Published in 2015,Cultural Issues in Criminal Defense – Fourth Edition, is a book written by lawyers or lawyers. It footed a reference to this blog for a court decision in the Marissa Alexander case.

Along with the citations, I’ve been blessed with being nominated for numerous peer-to-peer awards and have accepted thirty-three nominations. Blog awards are becoming more difficult now to pay forward because many bloggers are no longer accepting awards. Some blog themes are not designed to have borders to display awards.

When this blog was opened in August 2012, I had no idea what would happen – no idea how it would grow – no idea how many others I would be acquainted with. I thank everyone who has participated here making this possible.

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Zimmerman brought about any of his alleged injuries when he decided to ‘run’ after Trayvon. Zimmerman already had in his mind before he ‘ran’ after Trayvon that Trayvon was ‘suspicious’, ‘up to no good’ and ‘had his hands in his waistband’ but despite believing all of that, he gets out of his truck, and over the advice of the dispatcher, proceeds to ‘run’ after Trayvon.Under those circumstances, Zimmerman could never hope to claim self-defense when, after all, he placed himself into the circumstances that led to any of his purported injuries. Nobody told him to go ‘running’ after Trayvon, he chose to do that at his own free-will and at his own risk, and he can not now complain that he was in fear for his life when he claimed to have been ‘attacked’ by the very person that he ‘ran’ behind. That doesn’t make sense at all. It would be fool-hearted to suggest that Zimmerman should be entitled to self-defense when he knowingly and willfully took the assumption of risk, Volenti Non Fit Injuria when he chose to ‘run’ behind Trayvon.

Similarily, if a person crosses a barrier into a leopard cage to retrieve a smouldering cigarette gets mauled by the leopard, under the law, he would be prevented from suing based on the volenti maxim doctrine.

Assumption of Risk, Volenti Non Fit Injuria or Volentix Maxim are legal doctrines that bar Zimmerman from claiming self-defense under the circumstances that led to him shooting and killing Trayvon Martin.

Welcome! You make very good legal sense. When I first heard of this case, I considered that contributory negligence applied. But then, most of my experience with law is in civil and not criminal. There are Florida Appellate Court case decisions reviewing circuit court denials of immunity. What you describe as the leopard cage explains the essence of those case decisions. I’m unfamiliar with the doctrines you cite but will research them. Thanks.

Yes. Actually, I provided links to that blog and referenced it on other blogs. Like many other articles, it was written before discovery was released to the public and there is some speculation in it. However, the first part is very interesting. When considered with statements by Taaffe and that his house was in foreclosure, and the fact that Taaffe contacted Dorvial about “renters,” that part does appear to be very credible; i.e., there was a plan to violate the Federal Fair Housing Act by harassing Black residents to move out of the area in hopes of increasing property values.

Also, in one of his interviews, Taaffe conveys that the SPD was not doing its job. In GZ’s NEN call, he conveyed the same when saying “These assholes. They always get away.” I can see Taaffe having an agenda, and GZ taking opportunity to create a paid job for himself, (because the HOA was paying the SPD to patrol the area but they were not accomplishing what they hoped for, so why not pay GZ to do it, right?)

His description of Trayvon’s actions in the NEN is a classic police setup to justify a “good shoot.” “He’s got his hand in his waistband,” “He’s got something in his hand,” “He’s on drugs or something,” “He’s coming to check me out,” “Something’s wrong with him” painted a picture of an armed, confrontational kid, and intending to have the arriving office approach Trayvon ready to shoot. Had that happened, the arriving officer would be investigated for killing an unarmed teen. Thus, GZ was willing to throw a SPD officer under the bus because they “always get away.”

I wish that Gallagher would update his blog to address Taaffe’s media comments as they apply to what he wrote about the HOA.

Since the Stand Your Ground laws have been passed in many states, there have been many shootings that appear to have been inspired by these laws. While many of these shootings are not, in fact, covered by these laws, there are likely also some that were not prosecuted, because law enforcement authorities felt, that they lacked the resources to meet the higher standards required to win convictions. It being too easy to concoct a claim of fear for ones own life, while their claimed assailant/opponent is likely to have expired and be unable to testify otherwise.

Making investigations heavily time and resource consuming exercises that not every jurisdiction can shoulder. Potentially letting criminals go free.

Great. We need to open notepad, write a line or two and add the url. Then copy it to the clipboard. Go to places like alternet, Crooks and Liars, Truthout.org and other big blog sites. Then paste it into the comments boards. Each paste will probably bring 5 to 10 votes per day for a day or two. Even more it some readers there spread it too. This law is hugely unpopular with everyone except the gun nuts. The number of tragedies in the news is mounting fast as well. Someone counted 130 stories just this month.

If we don’t get something moving, we won’t have a society where people can even walk the streets without fear of being mistaken for a danger and shot.

Meanwhile the few petitions that make the 25k on the White house site, only clear by just a few hundred to a couple of thousand votes. We should be clearing by millions, but only if we get the word out enough for it to catch fire on it’s own. Thanks for all that you do!

Fan out and spread the word, this is a word of mouth campaign. Let’s show just how unpopular SYG really is to our lawmakers. We need 150 votes to go live on the site and we need 25k to get a response. Can we do it? Well… I’m gonna try!!!

Hello Jeff and thanks for commenting. I made a short visit to your blog (http://deconstructingmyths.com) and have to make a return visit. Your articles are deep and deserve more than the drive-through I just conducted.

Too often, laws are passed to benefit the lobbyists and contributors to politicians. Conceal carry encourages gun sells. The States, apparently, did not consider changing qualifications for conceal carry licenses. IMO, self-defense does not acquaint with driving to the store, walking from the parking lot to the store and back. Neither should conceal carry and SYG give people courage to physically go into areas where they do not feel safe.

SYG has indeed given people of questionable background, beliefs and temperament, ability to kill at will. Maybe — just maybe, once the States realize how much money is being spent prosecuting cases such as Zimmerman’s, they will reconsider the can of worms they opened with SYG.

Stop by any time, I do tend to be a bit wordy. I admire your advocacy and agree that Trayvon’s killing should have never happened. I’m surprised the Zimmerman defense isn’t claiming Trayvon was part of a terrorist sleeper cell which Zimmerman single handedly broke up.

Where to watch Tuesday’s hearing in the George Zimmerman case?
Central Florida News 13 plans to carry the entire hearing, which starts at 9 a.m.
WOFL-Channel 35 said live coverage starts on “Good Day” at 9 a.m. The station also will stream the hearing on its website.
WESH-Channel 2, WKMG-Channel 6 and WFTV-Channel 9 said they will stream the hearing on their websites.

Hello Kristeen and welcome to Blackbutterfly7. I haven’t put up encouragement for Dec. for Trayvon’s family yet but hope to get to it this coming weekend. In case you might have missed it, the link below is for the month of November.

Thanks Xena…. I know for the most part I haven’t made myself known on the Professor’s Blog; most of the time I’m more of an observer however if you’re interested in verifying who I am you can check my posts on Huffington Post under Lady2Soothe.

It’s nice to meet you, I’ve been enjoying your posts for several months.

Welcome Lady2Soothe. I have heard others talk about Huffington Post, but the site is massive and I’ve not taken time to check out where the things reported are happening. It’s nice meeting you too. Glad you found Leatherman’s blog also. Please don’t be a stranger.

Kelly, it’s anger and desperation. Notice, each time news comes out that is not beneficial to George Zimmerman, the bigots respond by making up lies, or some conspiracy theory about Trayvon, or his parents, or their attorneys, and all the way up to the President of the United States. What happened most recently regarding GZ? He is being sued by the security firm. The current lie about Trayvon is in response to the embarrassment and having no defense for GZ.

Now, there are two other things that you should also keep in mind. One, Trayvon was a juvenile. Juvenile records are sealed and cannot be unsealed without an order of the court. I didn’t hear O’Mara ask Judge Nelson for that. Secondly, if GZ’s defense decides to dig into Trayvon’s juvenile records, that gives the state right to dig into GZ’s juvenile records. GZ is the one with a gang tattoo. If I were a betting person I would bet that he has a very intense juvenile record, which is why when he turned 18, his parents shipped him out of Virginia to Florida in effort to get him away from his gang activity. His MySpace page also provides good reason to believe that GZ was involved in gangs.

The malicious responses from GZ’s camp is due to their ill-informed, uneducated, and ignorant belief that if they can intimate, bully, humiliate, and demean enough, that the State will dismiss the case. GZ does not want to go to court for an immunity hearing. GZ does not want to go to trial. GZ does not want to go to prison. He knows that is the outcome if his case goes to trial, so he posts lies about Trayvon on the internet, and uses his henchmen to do likewise.

Think about this — our justice system does not place different values on human life. When prisoners are killed in prison, perpetrators are identified, charged, and given opportunity to plea or go to trial. That the victim was a prisoner is no defense for killing him or her.

GZ is desperate. His supporters have let him down. He is financially broke, sued for over $27,000, and come tax time, potentially owes the IRS $70,000 on the $340,000 he received in donations because he asked for that money, thereby disqualifying it as a gift. The GPS prevents him from fleeing. The FBI and DOJ have an ongoing investigation into his possible violation of Trayvon’s civil rights, and there are other crimes and violations involved as well. The lies you are reading about Trayvon is a response to his anger and hate. The chickens are coming home to roost, and GZ doesn’t like that wake-up call.

Xena: There were several stories back in March confirming that TM did not have a juvenile record. The AP went looking for it and the Florida Dept. of Juvenile Justice confirmed that he did not have one, sealed or otherwise. Here are a couple of links

This from the CBS report:“Also Monday, state Department of Juvenile Justice confirmed that Martin does not have a juvenile offender record. The information came after a public records request by The Associated Press.”

You are correct. Had Trayvon had a juvenile record, the State Dept. would have said so. The deflections of the Zidiots are just that. They immediately jump on the “thug” train and want some evidence to prove they are right. Finding no evidence, they lie about it. Mudslinging as a defense for defendants charged with murder and/or rape when the victim was unknown to them have never been successful. I remember that John Wayne Gacy tried raising a defense that his victims were male prostitutes or rebellious against parents and run-a-ways. Gacy still got the needle in the end.

They are birds of a feather aren’t they? Just like GZ, they see crimes where no crime exists, comments made by a 3rd party are taken as fact regardless that no proof exists (bus driver). They jump on every assumption and then condemn those who make assumptions about GZ.

Xena
I’m new here too,but I do post on the professor’s blog and also on Dave’s. Far as I know I’ve only been banned from one blog,and that was for saying something that was completely misunderstood. Any way I’ll look around here and I promise to behave myself,use my inside voice,my napkin and the litter box when necessary.

Welcome TommysMom! I’ve seen your fonts over on Dave’s blog. You’ll find that Blackbutterfly7 has a tone where contributors are peaceful and at times, we vent out of our compassion for Trayvon and his family. Thanks for joining us.

Thank you for the gracious welcome. I try not to vent and never in anger. I’n pretty easy going maining because I’ve lived a pretty long time and understand if you sweat the small stuff all you get is a small pile of sweaty stuff.
I do believe in the hereafter,as many times I walk into a room and wonder “what am I hereafter”.

Hi Xena, Last week you (I think it was you) posted a link to a really evil looking photo of fogen (I thought I’d saved the link). I know it’s here somewhere but I can’t remember where. Will you please repost it/or send it to me. Thank you

Hi Lady2soothe. As blog administrator, I can embed photos so would not post a link — don’t remember anyone else posting a link to a photo either. The two newest posts would be the March encouragement for Trayvon’s family and friends, and the Insight – Screaming For His Life. I don’t see links in comments there to any photos.

@Horty. I’m humbled. Will have to think about this one because I don’t see Blackbutterfly7 as a “versatile” blog. I pretty much stay to one subject — justice for all. Hmmm. Will take this weekend and think about it.

Hey Horty!! You are so sweet!!! Okay, you are convincing me. I wish that we could nominate those bloggers who nominate us, but if I’m thinking correctly, that would require them to repeat the process of nominating more blogs. For instance, if I nominated your blog, would you have to nominate another 15 blogs?

Horty, If you right click on the image, a menu should come up that includes “save image as.” I don’t have one of those accounts for saving photos. If you do and if you think it’s more convenient, let me know and I’ll email the jpg version to you.

Horty, just sent you an email. I am so sorry that you have come under attack. They laid off others after I posted the following in September. They wait hoping that people forget or weren’t here to know about it, then they regurgitate the same ploys and harassment.

Horty, when I became aware of D.P., he already had a reputation for being obnoxious, and hateful. I didn’t spend time on blogs that are contrary to my interests, so paid him no attention.

Apparently, he felt no need to attack me until he realized that Blackbutterfly7 has a sister Youtube channel. D.P. then opened his own Youtube channel and posted videos that infringed copyrights. Because his subscribers were low, and views low (some of his videos had no views), he began sending filthy comments to this blog denigrating our Youtube channel.

Youtube terminated his channel. He opened another. Youtube terminated that one for bullying and copyright infringement. He opened another one. Youtube terminated that one for violation of their Community Rules. He is now posting videos to a channel in his name where some time ago, he posted videos with the wife he filed divorce against. With all his desire to be popular, that channel has 4 subscribers.

D.P. has several blogs; no subscribers, no comments. He has started numerous petitions on change.org that average 16 signatures and by the same people. Some of his petitions had about 3 signatures.

His harassment is because he is an envious person, so much so that it eats him up inside. Anyone who takes the time to find proxy IP address websites to hide behind cannot be confident in their actions.

I reject his evil in the nature of love. I refuse to return evil for evil and in that rejection, his evil returns to him.

Horty,
Thank you for your wonderful recognition, your friendship, and the love we share for the issues that we blog, and our love of blogging. I am grateful and appreciate your kindness and for taking the time to nominate Blackbutterfly7 for awards. That means so much to me.

I accept. Just this week, I said that I was going to make it a goal to comply with acceptance rules for each award at least once a week until I catch-up.

Dear friend, Thank you very much, I was really happy to have been following your blog. I’m still a lot to figure out, and here I can only say that you are an awesome blogger, full Inspiring and hope you can inspire more readers. Thanks and greetings compassion from Gede Prama 🙂

I would like to say I love your blog and the wonderful and beautiful things you share as well as the inspiration and smiles you bring in doing so! Thank you for being you and I hope even if you do not accept awards you will accept the sentiment expressed as I honor you with one. There is no prize that comes with the award other than my appreciation and being grateful you are part of our world and making a difference by sharing in such a positive way…
I have posted the award and link to it here I hope you will accept it or at least the sentiment behind it! http://artisticlyxpressedthoughts.wordpress.com/2014/03/27/awards-and-shared-gifts/

Mavadelo,
Thank you so much for the nomination. Blackbutterfly7 already accepted that award, but I think when there’s another nomination, we can add on a +2 or the year to the award. Thank you again. I love our Word Press Family.

My dear Horty,
Love you. I’m so far behind in award acceptance that I’m ashamed of myself. Thanks so much and hopefully, after Thursday, I’ll be able to concentrate better. Thursday I go to the hospital for a procedure.

Hi Sam and welcome to Blackbutterfly7. I enjoy reading courtsandsports, but have a problem accessing “knowthelawyer” because my virus program warns me “There is a higher than average probability that you will be exposed to malicious links or payloads.”

Hey Coach! I’ve already received that award, but your nomination gives me a chance to pass it forward to other bloggers who I missed the first time around. Thanks so much and thanks also for doing what you do.

Coach,
Thanks for accepting the nomination and paying it forward. Only one SMALL thing — I’m Xena; not blackbutterfly7. I do understand that my name and blog title is associated to distinguish me from the many others who share the same name and handle on the internet. 🙂

Ahhhh crap!! I am sooooo sorry my friend. I think I got the names totally confused. We have known each other since way back and always have enjoyed your blog. Please keep up the good work and again, please forgive my stupidity 🙂

LOL@Roach. I get behind on those that require answering questions AND nominating more than 5 other bloggers. I’m always afraid of leaving someone out that should be nominated. But I promise to get the nominations accepted this weekend. 🙂

Duffy,
I paid a visit to your blog, but you haven’t blogged anything since October of last year, so I didn’t want to leave a comment there because I don’t know if you’re still monitoring that blog. Your request to follow me on Twitter was declined because your timeline, compared to your blog, appeared to be opposite each other. It doesn’t appear that we share the same interests. I could be wrong.

If you have a very serious question to ask of me, then it must be related to the blog because that is the only way you would know about me?????

I cannot fathom what your very serious question can be, and if it’s so serious that you have to privately engage me, then maybe I’m not the person you should seek out for an answer. I’m sorry, but if you really believe that I am the person to answer your very serious question, then you will have to post that question here, on the blog. If I can and choose to answer you, I can post it here without posting the question.

Hello I read one of your blogs and my question was about the comments. Are people saying that Hood and Santiago were the same person? I got confused because I assumed Hood and Tommy Tampon were the same person and the Tommy Tampon account had posted pictures of my daughter. I deleted a lot of blogs of mine because some had shown me to be the harasser so I felt it was best to delete them to avoid any more fights and drama with the person they were mostly about. I only came on today to edit my blog on transitioning because I realized it still mentioned the person. My question was were the commenters suggesting that Hood and Santiago were the same person. I’m not asking for disruptive reasons I just wanted to know

duffy,
As I understand it, David Piercy has retweeted some of your tweets. That makes your question suspicious. It’s also suspicious why you would post your question here on this blog when the post you reference is on another blog. You could have posted your question directly to those on that blog. By the way, I’m not familiar with Tommy Tampon.

Well Duffy, if you’re communicating with David Piercy to deliver messages/questions here, then you voluntarily put yourself into his drama. You might want to think about how far you want to go in it and why before going further.

No he was the one who sent me the blog and told me that but I wanted to actually see it for myself not that I’m going to tweet about it or talk about it I just wanted to know. And for the most part David is nice to me but on the cases such as Kendrick and Trayvon we totally disagree. He used to troll me like hell but Ive tried to teach him to respect others opinions but u have my word what we discuss on here will go no further because it will only create more unnecessary drama. I’m in the process of cleaning up my timeline just so I can avoid drama. I’m trying but it seems drama always finds me but a lot of it is my fault so I’m just trying to be a better person

Duffy, when you say “HE was the one who sent me the blog,” are you talking about David Piercy? Are you aware that Santiago has a restraining order against David, and they are currently in proceedings to determine whether Piercy violated the restraining order? In other words, if Piercy tells you anything about Santiago and points you in my direction, I would question his motivation.

Yes he was the one but he has never really said anything bad to me about santiago I only knew about that by reading hoods timeline. He only mentioned him about a week or so ago and he said turns out hood was Santiago and mentioned they had a restraining order. I asked him are u sure and he sent me the blog and told me to read the whole thing and the comments so I did and I told him I didn’t really see where that was mentioned I only saw one comment that could have been perceived as them being the same. I just wanted to know for myself. I wasnt planning on doing anything with the info because hood scares me

Duffy,
In some of your other comments that are in moderation, you name people who I have no clue who you’re talking about. Not to worry — others have assumed that because I have a Twitter account, that I know everyone they know.

Since you were pointed in my direction by David Piercy, I’m having nothing to do with this.

Honestly and this is embarrassing but if he was also The troll trapper account its super messed up because the troll trapper account posted some VERY personal photos of me. It’s my own fault for sending them but it was totally degrading

Navy dad knows this to be true because he was mentioned in the convo when they were posted of course he didnt want any part of that because he asked troll trapper to untag him and I totally respected that. Navy dad is actually a really nice guy

Ive seen david troll people pniretty bad before so I know not to even try to play peacemaker with him. Im trying to teach him and others that while people might not agree with each other to always respect peoples opinions

U don’t have to worry about me talking to david about this because I know he will just go crazy and I don’t think hes ever read my blogs but I’m going to try and figure how to delete our conversation anyway so it doesn’t show up. He doesn’t even know that I contacted u on here

I think I got mad at hood because he accused me of playing both sides and posted our direct messages. I was not playing anyone I was only trying to br ing peace between tommy hood and tonya but Tonya and I had major problems. Thats always been my thing. I always think I can bring peace between people and I have learned my peace making skills totally suck and it usually backfires so i dont even try to do It anymore. Sometimes it works but other times it doesnt

Love your words and passion. I hope you can take a few moments and share with the listeners at Bobby Eaton’s blog radio in Tulsa. He will have a community broadcast tonight about the Terrence Crutcher shooting and trial. Info below, thanks for what you do…

After the verdict was announced,The hearts of so many where saddened. Did the system let Betty Shelby walk free shooting an unarmed Terrence Crutcher. What do you think. Tune in this Monday 6pm cst and voice your opinion abot this much needed discussion. Dial 646 716 5525 and press the 1 button to talk on the air. http://www.blogtalkradio.com/wfunk